NLU Jodhpur may soon start its very first elected student body, said vice chancellor Prof Poonam Saxena.

“I’ve always supported a student body, never resisted it,” she told us by phone today.

NLU Jodhpur does not have a formal student body, although it does have a “student chief” and “vice-chief”, selecting from fifth- and fourth-year batches two students with the highest CGPA their respective previous semester.

Saxena said that this was an “inherited legacy” system and that she was all in favour of an elected student body, having been at Delhi University previously (where she had headed up Law Centre II before joining Jodhpur in 2013).

Students had approached her again this year about the idea of reforming student representation. “I’d be really happy, I had given my go ahead in April,” she said.

In July, students had approached her again and she told them to continue with the process.

“I think they’ll be starting whole process maybe tomorrow, or day after,” Saxena noted about students discussing the next steps. “There should be [a student council], why should there not be?"

“It takes a lot of load off the administration if you [students] are interested,” she added, saying that student preferences regarding hostels or other issues should be framed by such a body. “If you have an elected body, that can also look into ensuring discipline by laying clear rules that should be practically enforceable uniformly.”

Any recent rumours that she had resigned as VC from NLU Jodhpur were not true, she clarified.

Last year, NLIU Bhopal had started its first student council.

However, several national law universities such as GNLU Gandhinagar, NLU Delhi and RGNUL Patiala do not (though the RGNUL administration has in theory agreed to the idea).